Readings, 2 Timothy 2:8-15 and Luke 17:11-19
Image, René Magritte, La reproduction interdite, oil on canvas, 1937. 
 
You may have heard it said: we are mysteries to ourselves. That is to say, just as we cannot know everything about another person, that other people are not transparent to us (we cannot stop them in time, lift them up and observe them from all angles inside and out) we are also not transparent to ourselves. We are somewhat inscrutable even to ourselves. We act in ways that surprise us, we feel in ways we cannot properly put into words, our desires shoot out in baffling directions, we cannot always predict our reactions, we – as Saint Paul so immortally described – do not always do the things we love, but the very thing that we hate. “Know thyself” the old adage goes… “not so easily done” we might respond.
 
I’ve been reading some Saint Augustine for my studies. Augustine, the fourth century African theologian and Bishop of Hippo, is perhaps known most for his Confessions. Among its themes, Augustine suggests that to work out who I am, I need to be speaking and listening to God. Augustine shares the sense that the self is not-transparent, not able to be examined or narrated with any finality as even the appeal to our own memory is a shaky rather than stable exercise. But this recognition does not render impossible the understanding of a sense of self, instead, “once we have recognised how obscure we are to ourselves we somehow see that only in relation to the infinity of God can we get any purchase of the sort of beings we are.” (Rowan Williams, On Augustine, p. 4)
 
That is to say, we need to present ourselves before God in order to get a handle on who we are. To begin the task of self-discovery we do what is instructed in the second letter to Timothy: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel. It is Christ, after all, who is faithful when we are faithless, because while we might not know ourselves, Christ cannot deny himself. Such is the surety of Christ’s self, that even when we waiver and are faithless, Christ can only be who he is: with pure steadfast consistency, and Christ is the faithful one of God, the saviour of the world, in whom we live.
 
Today’s gospel reading helps illustrate these points. Jesus, travelling toward Jerusalem, encounters a group of lepers. What follows -up to the point of their departure - is entirely in keeping with the religious customs of the Judaism of Jesus’ day. It is what happens next that is surprising:
 
As they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’
 
We note that the lepers were not made clean in Jesus’ presence, but, somewhat mysteriously, while they were on their way to present themselves to the priest. The Samaritan saw the change and turned back praising God and giving thanks to Christ. I have some questions: do you think he is the only one to turn back because he is the only one who thinks to thank Jesus, or because he is the only one to notice being made clean? Does he turn back because, as a foreigner, he is not expecting a warm welcome from the priest? What do we make of the fact that the one who turns back and receives commendation from Jesus, is the only one who disobeys his direct command? And, finally, what does it mean for Jesus to say to him that his faith has made him well, when he – like the others – were already made clean before and despite their decision to return and honour Jesus?
 
Perhaps the nine who pressed on did not notice they had been made well. Perhaps so accustomed to their affliction and its resulting isolation they struggled to see themselves anew, struggled to notice that new life could break in through old wounds. Soon enough they would arrive before the priest and their change would be revealed, but it can be hard to recognise changes in ourselves. If we take this as possible, then perhaps the reason the Samaritan is able to notice that he has been made clean, is the same reason he turns back to Jesus, and the same reason his faith has made him well… it is that he has gained purchase on who he is because he recognises that he came face to face with the infinity of God. With this newly established point on his compass the Samaritan can recognise both that he has been made clean and who he owes this blessing, and in so doing a new faith has been awakened in him. This faith is not what makes him clean, but it is what makes him well, in that it gives him a clearer more dazzling picture of himself, because he has a clearer more dazzling picture of what God is doing through Jesus Christ. 
 
How might we come to do the same? Present ourselves before Jesus Christ, and relate ourselves and our quest for self-understanding to him? It is significant to the story that the one who turns back is the Samaritan, a foreigner. This continues a theme developing in the gospel of the surprising capacity of outsiders to recognise the significance of Jesus – a recognition that is often set in contrast of the inability of Jesus’ own people to recognise him as their messiah. And what this theme, and particularly this instance, reveals for us is that proximity, familiarity, and a sense of privilege obscure us from recognising our need for Jesus, and in turn, obscure our understanding of ourself.
 
That is to say that part of why the Samaritan recognises what has happened is because of his outsider status. Because of the animosity he has faced, because the usual sites set apart for the encounter of God and God’s people have been closed or hostile, he is open to seeing a new thing, open to having his religious life reoriented, open to recognise the inbreaking of something new. The lesson for us is that proximity and familiarity can muffle the sense of unrecognisability of the self. A life lived on the inside, comfortable in our religious status, can in turn settle the sense of ourselves. We can come to believe that who we are can be known and defined perhaps through a label, or an association, or by reference to our own character, beliefs, actions. The fallout of such a settled sense of the self, of settling on a view of ourself as good, or elect, or churchly, is that we can neglect the need to continually orient the self in relation to Christ. Because this orienting act is never complete, it is ever occurring in the act of repentance, taking up our cross, and following Jesus. Ever occurring in the act of presenting ourselves before Jesus Christ as one approved by him.
 
Recognising the finiteness and incompleteness of any label, or any self-attained sense of self, and in resolving to gain a sense of purchase of ourselves in relation to the infinity of God, keeps us open to the peculiar movement of the Holy Spirit which can disrupt the familiar and allow us to see in the strange and the new the workings of God. Our worship seeks this kind of ever occurring reorientation of the self to Christ. We disrupt our sense that we can know and control the full motivation and effects of our works in the act of confession. We disrupt the sense that we have no more good news to hear through the act of the proclamation of the Word. We disrupt the sense of ownership and obligation through the act of offering. We disrupt the sense of our self-sufficiency through coming to be fed at Christ’s table. We disrupt the sense of our limits through the act of sending. And across the week in our response to the call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God in our service to and solidarity with our neighbour we disrupt any sense of self that is not interdependent with creation and dependent on God.
 
In baptism we confess our identity is known only in Christ: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. And so let us commit together, to the collective work of continual reorientation of who we are in relation to the heart of our faith: Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel.

Reading, Luke 15:1-10
Image, The Parable of the Lost Coin, Domenico Fetti (1589–1624)

​During our kid’s talk about baptism, we explored various imagery which helps communicate the reality of baptism. Our becoming part of the body of Christ, our being buried in Christ so that we can rise with him also, our light secured and enlivened in the fire of Christ’s light, our name being added to the great cloud of witnesses. The reading today carries two similar, potent images. The lost sheep and the lost coin, found and returned, the cause of much celebration.
 
Much comfort and hope has been gleaned from these most famous of stories. For in them, we see the attention, tenderness and determination of our God. This is a God not of averages but individuals. This is a God not content with rounding errors but who counts, knows, and delights in every hair on our head. The God who numbered the stars in the sky is as attentive to the human as the shepherd charged with the care of 100 sheep, as attentive to us in our billions as a woman to her 10 coins. These stories display the attention, tenderness, and determination of our God who knows when there is one who needs to be gathered, who knows where the lost will be found, and who celebrates their homecoming.
 
In theological speak, there is a term called the economy of salvation. The economy of salvation is used to describe the way in which God manages, or stewards, the salvation of the world. As an example, you might say, the economy of salvation is revealed in God’s decision to send the Son in love, or that the Spirit’s role in the economy of salvation is to awaken faith and understanding in the individual to the completed work of Christ. Baptism, even, can be part of the economy of salvation – not because it changes our status before God, but because as sacrament it points to the saving work of Christ and its effect in our common life. What we see, in parables such as those read today, is how different the economics of the economy of salvation are, from the economics of the world.  
 
By welcoming outsiders, the estranged and marginalised, Jesus risked not only his reputation, but the possible reception of his message. It was this welcome that brought about the grumbling that led to today’s parables. And the parables themselves attest to the deliberate attention paid to the few, the lost, the one amidst the many. None of these choices map onto the secure and prudent practices of worldly economics, all-to-ready to account for the odd lost coin or sheep, knowing that it is rarely worth the effort to retrieve.
 
And yet, time and again, Jesus teaches us that the kingdom of God is made known through an inversion of worldly values and expectations. Consider, for instance, the parable of the landowner who hires workers for his field at various points across the day. At the end of the day, the he gathers all the workers and pays each a day’s wage. Those who were there at the beginning grumbled at this wage parity. To which the landowner responds, Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ 
 
Or consider, for instance, the parable of the banquet, when those who received the first invitation to dine do not come, and so the host sends servants to the streets to gather all they can find, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
 
The point is never order or longevity, deserving or protocol. For the joy is in the gathering up – is the bringing in of those outside, forgotten, and lost. It is in the inversion of the old order of things and replacing it with something sublime – the celebration over one found, the last being first, the hall filled with the good and bad. And the risk, as it was in for those grumbling at the beginning of today’s reading, as it will be for the older brother in the parable that follows the two we heard, as it is for those who went first to the fields, or turned down the invitation to feast, is to miss out on the celebration. Is to miss out on what is been made new in God’s attention, tenderness, and determination. To allow the economics and values of the world to rob us of the joy at something so strange and sublime as the attention, tenderness, and determination of God to fill God’s household with merriment, meaning, and fellowship. 
 
Because if we miss this celebration, if we grumble through what God is doing because it does not look like the logical or the prudent, if we scoff at the welcome of those so seldom welcomed, then we will miss what it is we are called to do. For as those who have received the grace of God and called to bear the fruit of the Spirit, we are called to live in response to God’s attention, tenderness and determination – to model it in our own life, to seek it in our community. For as the church we are called by God to organise ourselves after the economics of the economy of salvation.
 
This week you may have seen the story of Carlo Acutis, in the news for becoming the first millennial saint. Often what is first highlighted about Carlos’ life was his use of the internet to catalogue miracles and witness to the good news of the gospel (work he began at 11 years old). But what is also highlighted was that, between 11 and 15, Carlos was also known to go about Milan, giving out sleeping bags to the homeless, giving money from his allowance to the poor. When Carlos died, tragically from a rare cancer at age 15, his funeral was unexpectantly packed with a crowd of the poor and homeless from across Milan. His Priest remarked, “It became apparent that Carlo had befriended so many of these people.” What a witness to a life modelled on the attention, tenderness, and determination of God. One devoting gifts, passions, and time to the kind of upside-down economics of the kingdom of God which celebrates in the great gathering of the unexpected a testament to the nature of our God, who refuses to allow a one to be lost or forgotten. May our own days, our own community, be marked by such attention, tenderness, and determination.

Readings, Isaiah 43: 1-2, 5-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Image, Hiroshi Senju, Waterfall, 2016. ​
 
It was a happy accident that today’s baptism was rescheduled to the Baptism of Christ Sunday. Not only do we get to celebrate the baptism of --, but now we reflect on the baptism of Jesus. This is most suitable after all, for there is only really ever one baptism. For the millions of baptisms performed by Christians over two millennia simply share in Christ’s own baptism. And as we share in Christ’s baptism, we share in the words spoken over Christ by God: This is my beloved child. With you I am well pleased.
 
But what more might it mean to share in Christ’s baptism? When writing of the victory of Christ, Paul declares that Christ’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For we are baptised into Christ’s death, and if we share his death then we shall share in his resurrection. We walk with Jesus out from death into newness of life. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you have received a spirit of adoption… and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
 
Our baptism, which is a ripple of Christ’s own immersion, signifies the reception of this spirit of adoption. That what is Christ’s is ours, that by plunging into his death, we are raised into his life and glory. This act recognises that in Christ everything is made new. Old shames, old barriers, old designations are buried, and we walk in newness of life a sibling of Christ. It is not that those existing markers of our identity (be it culture, history, or relations) are obliterated, but they are viewed through the lens where the truest thing about us is that we are a beloved child of God. We are delighted in by the Divine not because of anything we do, but simply for being one formed and made in the life-breath of God. No one may assume superiority over another because of lineage, wealth, status, gender, race, or worldly esteem, for we are all of us beloved creatures: formed by, delighted in and called by God.
 
But we share something more. In the gospel accounts, Christ’s baptism signifies his emergence on the scene. Following his immersion in the waters, the heavens break apart, the divine blessing is announced, and Christ is immediately driven to the wilderness to face trial and temptation. Following his triumph there he bursts into action and begins of his ministry: heralding the coming kingdom of God, calling disciples, casting out demons, and restoring people to wholeness.
 
To be baptised into Christ is to proclaim and celebrate that we share in all that belongs to him. We share in Christ’s righteousness, his resurrection, his glory, divinity, and eternity. But we also share in his work, his commission and calling. We share in his work to proclaim good news, to restore to wholeness that which was broken, to bring hope where there was misery, freedom where there was oppression, justice where there was indignity, mercy where there was apathy, healing where there was hurt, restoration where there was fracture, neighbourliness where there was exploitation, community where there was isolation. Baptism signifies that the great virtues at the heart of our faith (mercy, charity, forgiveness, justice, love, grace, beauty) are what we get to devote our lives to because we share in all that is Christ’s. Works of this nature are what we perform gladly in response to the Spirit of adoption we have received. This is walking in newness of life.    
 
As our baptisms are – essentially – repetitions of Christ’s own, we seek to live lives that are (to the best of our abilities) repetitions of Christ’s own. For in his grace Christ has made what was his, ours – both the riches of his righteousness and the significance of his work. Such wonders are what rightfully belong to beloved children of God, co-heirs with the Son, in whom God delights.

Readings Gen 1:1-5 and Luke 3:10-22
 Image, JMW Turner, Study of Sea and Sky (1823–6)
 
The baptism of Jesus occurs against a backdrop of injustice, amidst calls to redistribute wealth, lay aside profit, and fight corruption, and within a growing sense of religious fervour and political hope. The people were filled with expectation and hopes that John might be the messiah, and yet he is violently swept off the scene.
 
This is a stark difference to the peaceful quiet beginning, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. When God, uncontested and unrivalled, slowly and sublimely spoke the world into being. Where God once looked on creation and saw that all was good… now, Christ walks among this creation looking upon despots and desperation.
 
Toward the end of that first account of creation human beings are created in the image of God. We bear God’s image and in doing so are called to live as God’s emissaries on earth. Like still waters our lives should reflect the image of the Holy One, on earth as it is in heaven… and yet generations of struggle and strife have muddied the waters, the reflection is disrupted as rough tides occlude the vision of the sky above.
 
So Christ comes to the river. The eternal Word, through whom all things came into being, comes to be with us. Jesus comes as the image of the invisible God so that if we should struggle to reflect that image, or fail to see it in another’s visage, we can look to Christ. In an act of new creation, Christ plunges into the waters of our worries and woe and emerges in glory. He sees the Spirit that hovered from the first, hovering once more, hears the voice which first spoke all things into life, speaking once more. This scene, taking place in waters marked by human yearning and imperial violence, shows that God remains committed to the goodness of creation, inviting us still into the great work of love and life. The world may no longer be formless, the waters might not be so resplendent, but God is with us and for us.
 
Jesus plunges into the waters of human struggle and frailty, sharing the burden of all that distracts us from the way of God, all which distorts our ability to behold the image of God in our neighbour and ourself. In his baptism Jesus stills the waters. He is the reflective pool in whom we see the invisible God and understand the gift and responsibility of image-bearing. Jesus shares in our baptism so we may share in his life. So that the divine pronouncement of belovedness offered over him, should be offered over all of us as well. He goes down into the waters with all of us sinners, and draws us up siblings.
 
And as siblings we not only share what is Christ’s by grace, but are called to what is Christ’s by nature. We who share Christ’s righteousness now share in Christ’s commission. A commission to proclaim and pursue the justice of the kingdom of God. For just as John’s teaching before the baptism of Jesus concerned the material requirements of justice and community, the teaching of Jesus following his baptism takes up the same: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’  Baptism leads us into action, leads us into a particular way of living together, where we pursue justice and equity in our material relations.
 
We behold the invisible God in the image of Christ, and are led forth with renewed sight into the wilderness of the world to proclaim with Christ the things that make for peace, and to perform with the Spirit, the works of justice and mercy that unbind, raise up, and restore. We are called to become part of Christ’s body the church so we may live together in such a way that stills the waters around us. So that we might better reflect who it was that made us, and who we are made to be.